at the cost of sounding bitter, it's hard to see others living the lives they want without feeling like i'm doing some sort of nauseating and perverse form of window-shopping here. "when is it my turn?" i sometimes say to myself, in a weird confluence of envy and pride. i never want to admit that, though. i don't know if any of us really do - it's a twisted way to think and live, we might say to ourselves. maybe that's the pride speaking again? i digress! what i mean to say is that i've always wanted any part of this to call home. settings that seem to only exist in dreams. a local spot with coffee how i like it, a friend's place, a dusty backroad i've known since i was a child (even my own home if we're feeling adventurous) surely come to mind - i don't know how people who have their shit together actually conceptualize this, but that's how i imagine it. oh to participate in local scenes with any degree of enthusiasm... an obscene fantasy! you're not picking up melee just to see if the pond will recognize your reflection again, are you?
i go on walks more or less every day. i go on walks without headphones or much to distract me - just the world around me to hold my senses steady. i turn the same unkempt corners, brush past the same sidewalk overgrowth, more or less every day, no matter what happens. it's not something i consciously realized, but i'm looking for home here - that's what i'm doing. unfamiliar flowers passing me by, bird calls i hadn't noticed before - i try to identify these in the noise. did you hear that truck eating shit in one of our many famous potholes? still, it's hard not to have your head in the clouds when they're the only thing calling your name.
it's a tough call to make, finding home in a place you don't plan to stay. but then you smell the magnolias in bloom, and you see maybe a dozen turtles reaching towards the midday warmth with the littlest of necks, and you begin to wonder if home is external so much as it is internal.